In the past two decades, the Orthodox Church of Georgia as an institution has been considerably strengthened, and its influence in the public space has significantly grown. As demonstrated by numerous studies, this is partly due to the link between national and religious identities and to the instrumentalization of religion by political elites. However, the concrete ways in which the public authorities have sought to establish their legitimacy thanks to religious references remain to be scrutinized, as well as the constraints they are subjected to. This article focuses on the games of power and strategies of the Patriarchate and the Government around the construction and reconstruction of two cathedrals, Sameba and Bagrati, and on the challenges of building the symbolic national space. Through the analysis of the attempts of the Saakashvili Government to use the symbolic resources provided by major religious buildings, it sheds some light on the limits of the instrumentalization of Orthodoxy in the legitimization of power.
Keywords: Orthodox Church of Georgia, national heritage, churches building, de-secularization, public space, religion and politics.
The first anniversary of the "Rose Revolution", on November 23, 2004, was marked by the consecration of the Sameba (Holy Trinity) Cathedral by Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II in the presence of Orthodox hierarchs, representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church.
This article was written as part of the CASCADE project (http://www.cascade-caucasus.eu/)
Vremya soborov: kul'tovye zdaniya i politicheskaya legitim'nost ' v postsovetskoy Gruzii [Time of Cathedrals: Cult Buildings and Political Legitimacy in Post-Soviet Georgia]. 2016. N2. pp. 133-155.
Serrano, Silvia (2016) 'The Time of Cathedrals: Religious Buildings and Political Legitimation in Post-Soviet Georgia", Gosudarstvo. religiia, tserkov' v Rossii i za rubezhom 34(2): 133-155.
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other cults, as well as new political authorities - from President Mikheil Saakashvili and his predecessor to Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze and Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania. At first glance, the ceremony presented the spectacle of a "symphony" between secular and religious authorities, so often referred to in the Orthodox context. However, one of the priorities of the team that came to power as a result of challenging the rigged results of the 2003 elections and overthrowing Eduard Shevardnadze was to reduce the influence of the church. The promised "democracy" involved the establishment of a new relationship between secular power and cults, a task set by some of the closest advisers to the President, known for their anti-clericalism.1 Nevertheless, the two terms of Mikheil Saakashvili's presidency ended with a significant strengthening of the Georgian Orthodox Church as an institution and its growing influence in the public space.2
This paradox is explained by a combination of several factors. The purpose of this article is to examine how the Saakashvili government turned to the resources of Orthodoxy and what were the consequences of this policy. More specifically, the topic of the article is the construction or restoration of two religious buildings: Sameba Cathedral in Tbilisi and Bagrati Cathedral in Kutaisi. Recent studies on the construction or reconstruction of churches have shown that the essence of these events is the inclusion of religion in the public sphere, 3 which is not always limited to desecularization processes.4 The two mentioned buildings show the role of monumental buildings in the symbolic construction of urban space and the importance of religious buildings as "a means of symbolic legitimation and strengthening of political and economic power".5. Payment methods,
1. Serrano, S. (2013) "La construction en Georgie d'une Laicite Postsovietique : Mise en oeuvre, Mise en Cause et Resistance", Revue d'etudes comparatives Est-Ouest 44 (01): 77-112.
2. This increase is quantified in terms of funding, an increase in the number of dioceses, etc. Zviadadze, S. (2014) Politik und Religion in Georgien, Die Beziehungen von Staat und Kirche und Sakularisierungsproblematik im Postkommunistischen Georgien. Hambourg Verlag Dr. Kovac.
3. Casanova, J. (2008) "Public Religions Revisited", in H. de Vries et al. Religion: Beyond a Concept, pp. 101-119. New York. Fordham University Press.
4. Andezian, S. (2010) "Introduction: Proces de Foundation", Archives des Sciences sociales des Religions 151: 9-23.
5. Antonyan, Y. (2015) "Political Power and Church Construction in Armenia", in A. Agadjanian, A. Jodicke, E. van der Zweerde (eds) Religion, Nation and Democracy in the South Caucasus, p. 81. Routledge.
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how church and state institutions position themselves in relation to these two councils illustrates the complex and tortuous path of desecularization in the post-Soviet space. 6
Cathedral and Palace: semiotics of the city
The Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity (Sameba) in Tbilisi symbolizes the newfound power of the church. It embodies it with its impressive size and elevated position, dominating the urban development as a whole. But we will see how the government that came to power after the Rose Revolution tried to challenge the symbolic monopoly of the church inherited from the past and create a new, purely secular and religion-independent symbol of legitimization of power - the presidential palace. Thus, the coexistence of worldly and spiritual powers is projected onto the urban landscape.
The cathedral
The decision to build the cathedral dates back to 1989. It was adopted in connection with the one and a half thousandth anniversary of the autocephaly of the Georgian Church7 and preparations for the celebration of the two thousandth anniversary of the birth of Christ8.
Archil Mindiashvili, the chief architect of the cathedral, 9 says: in May 1989, shortly after the bloody suppression of the April 9 rallies, the Patriarchate and the city authorities of Tbilisi declared
6. Karpov V. Kontseptual'nye osnovy teorii desekulyarizatsii [Conceptual foundations of the theory of desecularization]. 2012. N2 (30). pp. 114-174.
7. The autocephalous Church of Georgia was liquidated in 1811, after the Russian conquest. In 1917, the Georgian bishops announced the restoration of autocephaly, but later the church was weakened due to the anti-clerical policy of the Soviet government. True, thanks to Stalin, the church gained an independent status and was recognized by the Russian Orthodox Church as autocephalous; however, it was not until 1990 that its autocephaly was recognized by the Ecumenical [Constantinople] Patriarch.
8. It is interesting that the idea to build the cathedral originated simultaneously with the campaign for the restoration of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow; another example is the construction of the grandiose Cathedral of the Salvation of the Nation (Catedrala Mantuirii Neamului) in Bucharest-see Capelle-Pogacean, A. (2008) " L'or thodoxie Nationale en Roumanie, le Miroir Eclate ?", in A. Capelle-Pogacean, P. Michel, E. Pace (eds) Religion (s) et Identite (s) en Europe, pp. 177-211. Paris: Les presses de Sciences Po. Here it will be appropriate to recall the construction of the Kul-Sharif Mosque in Kazan.
9. Interview with Archil Mindiashvili, Tbilisi, 2010.
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international competition for the best project of the cathedral designed to become the patriarchal Cathedral instead of the Zion Cathedral in the center of Tbilisi. "Those were the last hours of the USSR," the architect emphasizes. The Communists were still in power, but "they were Georgians." Mindiashvili's project was selected from several dozen others. However, the economic problems that Georgia soon faced after independence delayed its implementation, and only in 1995 did work finally begin: on November 3, 1995, on the day of St. George, the patron saint of the country, the consecration of the construction site took place; and later, on March 3, 1996, a ceremony was held in honor of laying the first foundation stones.. Both rites were performed in the presence of then-President Eduard Shevardnadze. The first service in the cathedral was held on December 25, 2002.
This cathedral is the architectural embodiment of the Georgian "ecclesiastical renaissance", the legal expression of which was the signing in the same year, a month earlier, of a "constitutional agreement" between the state and the church (under this agreement, the church received numerous privileges).
Sameba stands on the hill of St. John the Baptist. Elijah, in the Avlabari quarter, on the high bank of the Kura River. According to the architect,in the place where the first construction was supposed to be, there was a Traffic Inspection Department. 270 families needed to be resettled, but due to the influx of internally displaced persons caused by territorial conflicts, resettling such a large number of people was not easy. Then the choice fell on the residential quarter of Vake, but it did not fit, because Vake, as the architect says, is "a kind of dead end" on the city plan 10. In the end, a competent mixed commission consisting of representatives of the Patriarchate and city authorities proposed a Friendship park-also in Avlabari. The Patriarchate agreed with this choice, since this place can be seen from anywhere in Tbilisi; it also satisfied the city authorities, because the old houses in that area were dilapidated, and the construction site provided a convenient reason to improve the appearance and renovation of the quarter. Thus, the need to restore urban development and the ongoing privatization of real estate allowed the church to ensure a good location of the cathedral.
10. Interview with Archil Mindiashvili, Tbilisi, 2010.
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The monumentality of the cathedral represents the power of the church. The complex includes the patriarch's residence, monastery, seminary and theological academy, several workshops, etc. The cathedral itself, cruciform in plan, consists of nine aisles; it is seventy-seven meters long from east to west and sixty-five meters wide from north to south. A seven-and-a-half-meter-high gilded cross tops the ensemble. According to Wikipedia, it is "the world's third-tallest Orthodox church" and "the largest Orthodox cathedral" in Transcaucasia; in any case, it is the largest ever built in Georgia.
The architectural concept of the cathedral fits into the Orthodox tradition and develops it. The building includes stones and soil from the Holy Land, from various monasteries or holy sites, as well as fragments of an ancient Georgian throne and acheiropoetos-an uncreated cross found in the mountains 11. Five side chapels are underground, as the Catholicos-Patriarch demanded that the building be fortified on the rock, according to tradition 12. The cathedral ,which "connects different traditional architectural styles of Georgia" 13, is an architectural metonymy: a new building that embodies with great perfection what the ancient churches were like 14.
The sameba served both as a testing ground for the construction of new churches and as a means for the church authorities to establish a modern architectural norm in the construction of religious buildings. However, according to Archil Mindiashvili, its construction was a real challenge, since architects who were educated in the Soviet era had no experience in building churches. So, says Mindiashvili, he "had to start from scratch, without having either-
11. Manning, P. (2008) "Materiality and Cosmology: Old Georgian Churches as Sacred, Sublime, and Secular Objects", Ethnos 73(3): 327-360.
12. Interview with Archil Mindiashvili, Tbilisi, 2010.
13. Cathedrale de la Trinite de Tbilissi, Wikipedia [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cath%C3%Ac;drale_de_la_Trinit%C3%A9_de_Tbilissi, accessed on 15.10.2012].
14. An article in the Guardian, dedicated to the destruction of the historical Georgian heritage, accompanied a photo of the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity with the inscription: "Rich architectural heritage under threat: Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi". "Letter from Tbilisi: Georgia Embraces Democracy, but Destroys its Past", The Guardian, October 14, 2012 (The Guardian editors mistakenly considered the new cathedral to be an ancient church) [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/14/georgia-embracing-democracy-dest roying-past, accessed 13.06.2016].
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nothing but books on the architecture of Georgian churches", which still had to be studied. As an architect, Archil was formed on a construction site: he built his first church in 1991, and by 2010 he could boast that he was the author of more than fifty projects.
Mindiashvili emphasizes that the project of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, submitted for the competition and approved by the city's architect, was developed in consultation with the clergy. Control over the observance of canonical architectural rules is very important today, when, according to Paul Manning, more churches are being built in the country than in the previous two thousand years.15 After all, these new buildings of various sizes, as well as the restoration of ancient ruins, are the result of private initiatives, often implemented without control. In theory, any plan must be approved by the Patriarchal Council, formed in the early 1990s to review building and mural projects and composed of clergy, architects, and art historians. The buildings should correspond to the national architecture, the significance of which now lies not only in the traces of the past preserved by the collective memory, but also in the revived religious practice. Subsequently, Archil Mindiashvili headed the Center for Architecture, established under the Patriarchate. Compliance with the architectural norm approved by the Patriarch, which, although new in comparison with medieval churches-mainly in terms of size - still retains a direct connection with them, is an important element in preserving the identity of church architecture and its perception by the citizens.
The choice of Avlabari, among other things, contributed to the "Georgianization" of the capital's landscape. The fact is that the oldest Armenian cemetery in the city, known as Khojivank, was located on this site. There was also the Armenian Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was destroyed along with most of the tombs and monuments in the late 1930s, when the cemetery was turned into a park of culture and recreation. From the very beginning of construction, bones and gravestones were discovered,
15. Manning, P. "Materiality and Cosmology: Old Georgian Churches as Sacred, Sublime, and Secular Objects".
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and the protests delayed the construction of the cathedral for some time. 16 Thus, the construction of the cathedral meant erasing the traces of the presence of a national and religious minority.17
As a result, the construction of the cathedral fit into the dynamics of bringing the urban landscape in line with the assertion of national identity; in fact, the activities of the Patriarchate, city authorities and the government were precisely oriented in this direction. There was a complete consensus in Georgian society regarding the construction of the cathedral.
Palace
When Mikheil Saakashvili came to power, his government had to deal with the church, which was on the rise and occupied a dominant position in the public space. This provision was the result of the policies of previous governments-under Gamsakhurdia and Shevardnadze-and sharply limited the choice of opportunities for the new government. Of course, it provided a certain set of symbolic resources that the authorities could use to legitimize themselves.18 But it interfered with Saakashvili's policies in two ways: first, it disturbed the balance between secular and religious authorities, and, second, it "imposed" the concept of a nation, which was carried by the church.
Although some members of Saakashvili's inner circle dreamed of reforming or subordinating the institution to the church, the president could not launch a frontal attack. At that time, the government did not support the students of the seminary and theological academy, who were inspired by the wind of freedom brought by the "rose Revolution" and demanded the democratization and modernization of the church. Since the coman-
16. The construction caused protests by the Armenian community, but they did not find a response from the Georgian public and gained popularity mainly outside of Georgia.
17. At the same time, some Armenian churches were abandoned due to an unresolved conflict with the Georgian Church claiming them and the authorities ' lack of interest in preserving the heritage of minorities.
18. Janelidze, B. (2015) "Secularization and Desecularization in Georgia: State and Church under the Saakashvili Government (2003-2012)", in A. Agadjanian, A. Jodicke, E. van der Zweerde (eds) Religion, Nation and Democracy in the South Caucasus, pp. 63-80. Routledge; K'ek'elia T, Gavashelishvili E, Ladaria K', Sulkhanishvili I. (2013) [The role of the Orthodox Church in the formation of Georgian national identity in the late XX - early XXI centuries]. Academic Swiss Caucasus Network, Tbilisi.
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Yes, the country that came to power was divided along religious lines (Zurab Zhvania positioned himself as a practicing Orthodox Christian, close to some hierarchs), Saakashvili could not subdue the church.
In contrast to the prestige and authority of the church, Saakashvili tried to establish a visible center of power on the elevated site of Tbilisi, using the same ways of expressing power - gigantism and demonstrative architectural gesture. The construction of a presidential residence, or rather a palace, on the same Avlabari, on the site where Sameba 19 was originally supposed to be built, illustrates "the instrumental mobilization of aesthetic forms in the service of ideology, a certain type of power" 20. This building - in the words of President Saakashvili, "the most grandiose government building built in Georgia in the last two thousand years" 21-was also intended to become a new symbol of Georgia. Among other things, this gesture seemed to fit the principle of separation of religious and secular powers into the public space.
The two buildings are largely opposite. The national soil of the church is opposed by the appeal of the secular authorities to the outside world, tradition-the energy of modernization, stone-glass. Built in the neoclassical style, with a colonnade resembling the White House, the building was conceived by Georgian architect Giorgi Batiashvili, and completed by Italian architect Michele de Lucchi (he is also the author of the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Peace Bridge). The building is decorated with elements of the Greco-Roman style and Italian Renaissance. The glass dome was designed by Georgian architect Vakhtang Zesashvili and Italian Franco Zagari, and made in Germany.
The palace also emphasizes national identity, but not in the same way as the cathedral. Here we find a mural depicting significant events in Georgian history (from "the revival of Georgian culture in the 19th century" to "the second half of the 20th century, the transition period, the civil war, chaos, the tragedy of April 9", then straight to the "rose Revolution", bypassing the USSR). Right here
19. Construction began in 2004 and was completed in 2009.
20. Colas, D. (2006) Sociologie Politique. Paris : PUF-Quadrige.
21. "Saakashvili: New Presidential Palace 'Costs a Trifle'", Civil Georgia, 11.07.2009. [http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=21220, accessed on 17.10.2012].
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There is a rotating monument that symbolizes the three branches of government (judicial, legislative, executive), and a fountain designed by a Spanish sculptor and consisting of glass fragments: it represents multi-ethnic Georgia. These references place Georgia in the context of Western modernity-political and social. One of the halls is named after Ekvtime Takaishvili (1863-1953), the guardian of Georgian cultural heritage after Sovietization, who was later canonized by the Georgian Church. The palace has a museum where gifts to the president are displayed. One of the most valuable is a manuscript of the Bible of the XI century in a gold salary covered with precious stones, presented by one of the emigrants-descendants of Bagration.22 As we can see, the religious element is present, but it occupies the place assigned to it by the secular authorities - the place of secularized " cultural values "as part of the"cultural and historical heritage".
The Sameba Cathedral contrasts this secular interpretation with a living religion. It reproduces the style of ancient churches, but does not belong to historical monuments. It speaks of the greatness and vitality of the church today, not of the legitimizing glory of the past. The cathedral has many functions: it is a place of worship, a place of power, a symbol of the nation, a symbol of tradition; the scale of services held in it indicates that it was fully accepted by the population. The Presidential Palace is overloaded with symbols, including religious ones, but its inability to embody anything more than the fragile and ephemeral power of the president indicates a lack of legitimacy of secular authorities.
The flashy exterior of both Tbilisi buildings stands in stark contrast to the opacity of the circumstances under which they were erected, particularly the financial ones. However, the methods of financing and how this opacity was perceived in the process of symbolic perception of the palace and the temple were different.
The Presidential Palace was built thanks to the resources, including those of coercion, available to the non-patrimonial State.23 According to M. Saakashvili, the Far Eastern Federal District-
22. Official website of the President [http://www.president.gov.ge/en/ThePalace/History, accessed from 16.10.2012].
23. Thus, during construction, a scandal broke out related to the unwillingness of a private owner to give up a plot of land bordering the construction zone. Sob-
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the rec cost "a mere trifle" (GEL 13 million)24. In fact, the work cost hundreds of millions of dollars, not counting municipal funds for the development of the entire quarter, infrastructure (water, gas, electricity) and compensation for the relocation of residents. All this secrecy is in sharp contrast to the" transparency " that Saakashvili proclaimed as the essence of democratic reforms, and it undermines confidence in the authorities. The Presidential Palace is rapidly becoming a symbol not so much of the continuity of the Georgian state, but of the rule of Mikhail Saakashvili and everything connected with it. After the defeat of Saakashvili's party in the 2012 elections, the palace was at the center of political conflicts related to the confrontation between the Prime Minister and the president.25
It is also impossible to know the exact amount of expenses for the construction of the Sameba Temple: there are no reliable sources that could clarify the origin of funds or the total cost of work.26 However, until very recently, when some non-governmental organizations tried to find out the documentary side of financing religious buildings, this opacity did not cause controversy. The implementation of many projects for the construction of churches was made possible thanks to collective funding through a special fund. Officially, the Patriarchate sent donations from parishioners for this purpose, thus emphasizing that the entire nation contributes to the construction of churches. According to common practice, a list of donors is laid in the foundation of the church, thanks to which the construction became possible.
In reality, the main donors are a limited number of individuals - politicians and businessmen. According to the architect, E. Shevardnadze participated, for example, in the financing of-
the police officer refused the proposed conditions, but was beaten and forced to leave the country.
24. "Saakashvili: New Presidential Palace 'Costs a Trifle'".
25. Prime Minister B. Ivanishvili demanded that President Margvelashvili leave the palace, arguing that it was too expensive to maintain it, and promised to conduct an investigation to find out the total cost of construction. But the president decided to stay in the residence in the name of preserving the continuity of presidential power.
26. The construction of large urban buildings is generally characterized by almost complete opacity in terms of the composition of shareholders and the terms of concluding transactions - without announcing tenders, without competition from architectural bureaus and construction companies.
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research institute for the construction of the bell tower; gold for the cross was paid for by another patron; Georgian emigrants also contributed. Since 2000, Bidzina Ivanishvili has financed a significant part of the work. One of his close associates became a member of the fund, which allows Ivanishvili to control the expenditure of funds from within. Billionaire Ivanishvili bought a quarry and a factory in Bolnisi to produce the building materials needed for building 27. In the new moral context of reallocating resources and rebuilding traditional client relationships, one of the functions of an iconic building is to enhance the social status and prestige of the donor, as Thomas Kellner showed in Russia [28] and Yulia Antonyan in Armenia [29]. Thus, church buildings become an arena of rivalry between the rich and powerful. A donation to a cathedral is a tribute to the community, the return of which is measured by legitimacy, including in the course of political competition.
The spatial proximity of two buildings on Avlabari Hill reveals the weakness of the authorities and the failure of the attempt to establish a center of secular power free from church legitimation. The president's secular project failed.
Bagrati Cathedral, or Saakashvili as a champion of desecularization
The controversy surrounding the presidential palace is a consequence of the lack of legitimacy experienced by secular authorities if they try to dispense with references to a religious symbolic resource. The reason for difficulties for the authorities may be, for example, their inability to stop the impoverishment of a significant part of the population. Therefore, the authorities need other symbolic supports, in particular, religious ones. The controversy surrounding the restoration of Bagrati Cathedral in a suburb of Kutaisi, a famous monument of medieval church architecture, will allow us to show how the authorities are trying to turn the symbolic capital of Orthodoxy to their advantage.
27. Interview with architect Archil Mindiashvili, Tbilisi, 2010.
28. Kollner, T. (2013) "Businessmen, Priests and Parishes. Religious Individualization and Privatization in Russia", Archives de sciences sociales des religions 162: 37-53.
29. Antonyan, Y. "Political Power and Church Construction in Armenia".
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So, the authorities responded to the symbol of the returned greatness of the church - the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity - by erecting a building designed to embody the public power of the state-the presidential palace. The clash between secular and religious forces around the Bagrati temple follows a different logic: it is no longer about emphasizing the division between the political and the religious in the public space, but, so to speak, about "embedding" the political in the very fabric of the religious building. The discussions surrounding the restoration of Bagrati Cathedral indicate a transformation in attitudes towards historical heritage and illustrate the inconsistent nature of the processes of desecularization.
Cultural and Historical Heritage: between the Church and the State
Due to its dual religious and cultural nature, "cultural heritage" belongs to both secular and ecclesiastical authorities. From a legal point of view, by virtue of a constitutional agreement, the ancient religious buildings were returned to the church and are now its property. But as national monuments, they are under the care of the Ministry of Culture and the National Agency for Cultural Heritage, which is obliged to ensure their preservation. From a symbolic point of view, these monuments represent repositories of national culture and material traces of the past, but at the same time they are sacred places where the church seeks to restore worship.
The Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady dates back to the XI century. It was built during the reign of Bagrat III (1008-1014), the founder of the unified Georgian kingdom, and bears his name. David the Builder (1089-1125) was crowned here. For both the Patriarchate and the Government, the council serves as a reminder of Georgia's former glory and of the "historical role of the Church" emphasized in article 9 of the Constitution. At the same time, Bagrati symbolizes the return of independent Georgia to the community of nations, as well as the international recognition that the country has enjoyed since: the cathedral became one of the first monuments on the UNESCO World Heritage List, where it was included in 1994, along with the Gelati Monastery (near Kutaisi), Svetitskhoveli Cathedral (Mtskheta, near Tbilisi) and the church Jvari (ibid.).
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In 2007, the Patriarchate, on its own initiative, called for the restoration of the cathedral, which belongs to it according to the constitutional agreement. The secular authorities responded favorably. Saakashvili made a commitment "with the blessing of the Patriarch and under his supervision, to begin work in the coming weeks on the restoration of Bagrati, a symbol of Georgia's rebirth and power." 30 A special fund was set up, whose activities, like the construction of the Sameba Temple, are difficult to trace, and work began next year. Religious and secular leaders were united in their attention to this pearl of national heritage. Nevertheless, the construction work in Bagrati was to become a field of long-standing controversy over the social and political significance of the"cultural heritage".
Cultural Heritage played a key role in preserving the church and national identity during the Soviet era, especially after World War II. The first Center for the Restoration of Historical Monuments in the Soviet Union was established in Georgia in 194931; then, in 1959, the Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments was established. Since the 1970s, when Eduard Shevardnadze was the first secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia, the Center has generously financed the reconstruction and restoration of cultural heritage.32 Many churches were restored in accordance with the project developed by the Scientific Council of the Department for the Protection of Monuments. In 1978, Shevardnadze signed the Regulation on the Protection and Use of Historical, Cultural and Natural Monuments, a law that allows qualified scientists to be employed and paid for their work. The budget allocated for the protection of cultural property has been significantly increased. The protection of national and cultural heritage was at the center of the "national movement" of the 70s of the last century.
After Georgia gained independence, cathedrals - religious buildings turned into "monuments" and, as a result, secularized - became sources of legitimization of power. So, for his inauguration on January 24, 2004, Saakashvili
30. [Bagrati Cathedral: copy or original?] // [Tabula]. 25.06.2012.
31. Gordadze, T. (2006) Formation Socio-Historique de la Nation Georgienne. Les legs des Identites Pre-Modernes, les Ideologies et Acteurs Nationalists. Dissertation, supervisor D. Colas.
32. Interview with urbanist and architect, specialist in cultural and historical heritage of Tbilisi Lado Vardosanidze, Tbilisi, April 2010.
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I went to the Gelati Cathedral to receive a blessing from the Catholicos-Patriarch: there, the president first took the oath of office at the grave of David the Builder.
The post-Soviet authorities paid great attention to the symbolic benefits that they could derive from cultural and historical heritage and its preservation; however, over the decades of independence, Georgia's material heritage was destroyed. This is due to the lack of funds associated with the collapse of the state, the loss of its monopoly in this area and the emergence of many individual initiatives around ancient buildings. Many churches were restored without any expertise or notification to the competent authorities, which sometimes led, on the contrary, to the destruction of buildings. Thus, in 2009 Svetitskhoveli Cathedral was included in the list of monuments under threat due to careless archaeological excavations and the privatization of land plots directly adjacent to the temple.
The position of the authorities in relation to Bagrati fit into the policy of restoring control over cultural heritage. There was also another goal: to remove it from the exclusive competence of the patriarchate and put it at the service of government policy. Thus, "cultural heritage" becomes the subject of a confrontation between the church and the state.33 Saakashvili's second inauguration ceremony was held on January 21, 2008 at the ruins of Bagrati Cathedral. By choosing a place that symbolized the unification of Georgia, the President declared his intention to restore Georgia's sovereignty over Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But it was also a way to establish the state's presence here shortly after the Catholicos-Patriarch took the initiative to restore the cathedral.
The restoration provided the government with an opportunity to interfere with the actual construction of religious buildings and subordinate it to political logic. In the conflict over the restoration work, the president, despite his own will, found himself in the role of one of the "secular agents of desecularization" that he speaks of
33. This confrontation is also taking place in other areas. Thus, in 2010, the Patriarchate failed negotiations between the Ministries of Culture of Turkey and Georgia on the restoration of churches on Turkish territory and mosques on Georgian territory. The Georgian government managed to get a signature on the agreement in 2012.
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V. Karpov 34, while the patriarch took advantage of the argument in defense of cultural and historical heritage. State and church leaders seem to have changed places.
Restoration or reconstruction: opponents swap places
Bagrati Cathedral has survived to this day in a dilapidated state. The roof and dome were destroyed during the Turkish siege of 1691, then the upper part of the cathedral was damaged in 1770 by Russian artillery shots during the capture of the fortress of Kutaisi. Restoration work began in 1952 as part of the Soviet policy of reviving the historical and cultural heritage and continued until the collapse of the USSR. There are no images or drawings of Bagrati Cathedral in its original form, before its destruction by the Turks. Meanwhile, according to the International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Places of Interest (ICOMOS), adopted in 1964, restoration is aimed at "preserving and revealing the aesthetic and historical values of the monument. It is based on respect for historical accuracy and on authentic documents. Restoration stops where the hypothesis begins ... " 35.
Consequently, the logic of the attitude to cultural heritage prescribed the restoration of the ruins, but did not provide for reconstruction. Fearing fatal misrepresentations, UNESCO has insisted since 2004 on respecting the monument's global significance and authenticity, and international experts have concluded that the building should remain in a state of ruin, in which it was included in the UNESCO list.
Nevertheless, the secular authorities, the opposition, and the church agreed on the project of reconstruction, not restoration in the strict sense. All sides saw reconstruction, in Saakashvili's words, as "the dream of the entire Georgian people" 36.
34. Karpov V. Conceptual foundations of the theory of desecularization.
35. International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites of Interest (Venice Charter 1964) [http://www.icomos.org/charters/venice_f.pdf, accessed from 27.03.2016].
36. [Saakashvili: Bagrati Cathedral should be reconstructed, I haven't changed my plan
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It was intended to restore the cathedral to "its glory and splendor"37 and, above all, to make it possible to hold divine services in the church. Indeed, from the point of view of the Catholicos-Patriarch, "churches are intended for worship, and not to be just historical and cultural monuments."38 This argument is expected on the part of the Church, but it is interesting that the secular authorities have taken the same position. Their preference for reconstruction (rather than restoration) was also motivated by the desire to restore the building to its original iconic function, even if at the expense of preserving its architectural authenticity.
The restoration plan approved in the summer of 2009 by the Ministry of Culture and the Commission for the Protection of Monuments provided for a complete reconstruction of the site. Saakashvili directly justifies this choice in a speech delivered during the national holiday on May 26, 2012: "Many people tell me that the reconstruction of Bagrati Cathedral is barbaric, that no one reconstructs the Acropolis in Greece. However, I think that Bagrati was built for people to pray in, and it should be restored so that today's Georgians can also pray in it. " 39
The agreed refusal of secular and ecclesiastical leaders to treat religious buildings as monuments is reflected in the formulations put forward by both sides. We are interested in these positions here because they are aimed at changing the configuration of relations between secular and religious authorities and at redistributing the resources of legitimacy. Indeed, the position taken makes possible architectural intervention, through which the government can gain symbolic control over the place of worship, modernize it. There were rumors that the reconstruction of the cathedral will be carried out in accordance with the same architectural principles as other prestigious buildings implemented at the initiative of Saakashvili. Changing the status of Bagrati, removing it from the category of "monuments" and returning it to cult functions (on what basis
opinions] // Civil.ge. 22.10.2009 [http://www.civil.ge/geo/article.php?id=21908, accessed from 10.07.2013]
37. Ibid.
38. [The Patriarch demands to restore the Bagrati Cathedral] / / Website of the Catholicos-Patriarch Foundation. 17.06.2012 [http://patriarch.ge/news/id/1051, accessed from 20.11.2012].
39. [Bagrati Cathedral: copy or original?].
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As we have seen, the reformist president insisted) was aimed not at abandoning the building in favor of the church, but, on the contrary, at "binding" it to the state, which means subordinating the religious resource to the political will.
The decision to carry out reconstruction rather than restoration has drawn criticism both within Georgian society and abroad. Bagrati's fate has become one of the most sensitive issues facing the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. In 2008, the Committee requested Georgia to provide guarantees that work would not start until it had reviewed and approved accurate and complete documentation. The Government ignored this appeal. In July 2010, UNESCO for the first time demanded to stop the work and added the cathedral, along with the Gelati Monastery, to the list of monuments in danger. The Committee expressed "deep concern at the irreversible interventions being carried out on site as part of a large-scale renovation project". He considered that "this project would violate the integrity and authenticity of the monument, and its implementation should be stopped immediately." 40
In Georgia itself, a strong protest movement has emerged in social networks, coming from architects, writers, historians, restoration specialists, and non-governmental organizations. Regret was expressed that the reconstruction plan was discussed only in a narrow circle of experts and was adopted without public discussions. Outrage was expressed over the planned architectural modifications, the details of which were never made available to the general public.
At the same time, due to the complex nature of the event, the government was sharply criticized from the opposite political flank and from other strata of society. So, the day after UNESCO threatened to remove the cathedral from the list of cultural heritage under threat, the youth wing of the Kutaisi branch of the Georgian Dream organization organized a demonstration, the participants of which explained that they were not against the restoration work, on the contrary, they were " in favor of the reconstruction of the church and for services to be held there."they only insist that "the church should be restored taking into account the ancient details", and consider that-
40. Decision 34 COM 7B.88 of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee [http://whc.unesco.org/fr/decisions/4196, accessed on 10.02.2016].
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"the presence of modern architectural elements"is considered unacceptable41. A spokesman for the National Agency for the Protection of Cultural Heritage was forced to publicly refute the idea of erecting a glass dome. The architect was dissatisfied with some of the decisions that were imposed on him - for example, the project of a glazed elevator shaft, conceived by the Italian architect 42.
Opposition to the government's policy, in fact, consisted in calls to abandon the modern elements of reconstruction and return to the architectural tradition according to the Orthodox canon. Due to the impossibility of restoring the building (because no one knows what it looked like before the destruction), the reconstruction, according to critics, should have corresponded to imaginary ideas about what Bagrati should be like.
International protests against government projects have led to an unexpected result: they gave the Catholicos-Patriarch the opportunity to remove the cathedral from state control and gave him a reason to appear as the only true defender of traditions and cultural heritage. The Patriarch took on the criticism of UNESCO and spoke in favor of coordinating the project for the restoration of the cathedral with the specialists of this organization.43 This position contrasts with the position taken by the Patriarchate in other cases, when work initiated by the clergy was initially carried out outside the framework of the protection legislation. The position of the patriarch, in comparison with the position of the secular authorities, seems more respectful of the assessments of the international organization and more cautious about the consequences that the removal of the object from the list of world cultural heritage could have. Patriarch Ilia engaged in a real parallel diplomacy, visiting UNESCO headquarters as part of an official visit to France, and he managed to change the conditions for the restoration of the cathedral. The Committee "notes with appreciation-
41. "Georgian Dream" protests against restoration works in Bagrati / / News.Ge, 16.06.2012 [http://news.ge/ru/news/story/18948-gruzinskaja-mechta-protestuet-reabilitacionnye-raboty-b agrati, доступ от 17.10.2012].
42. Interview with Tsira Elisashvili, specialist in Georgian architectural heritage, Tbilisi, October 2012.
43. [Patriarch demands to stop restoration work in Bagrati Cathedral] / / Website of the Catholicos-Patriarch Foundation. 17.06.2012.
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It is clear that coordination between the Georgian Church and the national authorities has improved, interaction has been strengthened, and actions to protect Georgia's world Heritage sites and religious monuments have become more effective. " 44
In 2012, with several interruptions, the work was finally completed. Thus, Saakashvili managed to complete the project in time; the consecration ceremony took place in the midst of the election campaign, on September 16, 2012, two weeks before the parliamentary elections. However, Saakashvili failed to capitalize on this. Despite the rejection of some of the architectural innovations envisaged in the original project, Bagrati now appears on the list of monuments in danger, and the World Heritage Committee considers "that the Bagrati Cathedral has been changed so much that its authenticity has been irreparably violated" .45
Therefore, the secular authorities cannot fully take advantage of the authority that their ability to defend cultural heritage against the attacks of the Church gave them in the eyes of certain segments of the population. Bidzina Ivanishvili recalled in connection with the consecration of the cathedral (which he did not personally attend) that it was he who largely financed the work, and accused Saakashvili of using the project for political purposes. For his part, the patriarch called the restoration of the cathedral a "great miracle" 46 and invited many politicians from all directions to attend the consecration of another cathedral in Poti, which was to take place a week later. Thus, the patriarch managed to strengthen the church's authority over the production of the "collective imaginary" thanks to a project that, however, was conceived and implemented by the state. Speaking in favor of reconstruction, not restoration, conducting personal discussions with UNESCO officials and forcing the authorities to abandon too modern and flashy solutions, he seemed to take on the role of a guarantor of the architectural tradition being created, but at the same time he himself
44. Decision 35 SOM 7A.29 [http://whc.unesco.org/fr/decisions/4363, доступ от 10.02.2016].
45. Decision 37 SOM 7A.32 adopted at the thirty-seventh session [http://whc.unesco.org/fr/decisions/5009, accessed on 10.02.2016].
46. [Consecration of Bagrati Cathedral] / / Website of the Catholicos-Patriarch Foundation. 16.09.2012 [http://www.patriarch.ge/news/id/1199, accessed on 10.02.2016].
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I broke with the requirements of authenticity imposed on historical and cultural heritage.
This project, implemented by the authorities, was evidence of their desire to gain control over the religious imagination. In reality, however, the resources of Orthodoxy have come under double control, and the "religious" here can no longer be reduced to national or cultural content alone.
Conclusion
Architectural initiatives of the authorities and the patriarchy led to significant and long-term transformations of urban landscapes. At the same time, projects implemented by the authorities, as a rule, were associated only with specific people-Saakashvili himself and his supporters; on the contrary, large cathedrals are a focus of the national imagination. This helps explain why Saakashvili's time in power was a time of strengthening the church.
The president's intervention in architectural affairs reflects the internal inconsistency of Saakashvili's entire rule - the inconsistency inherent in" democratization from above " in general. The Presidential Palace, like many other monumental buildings initiated by the president, serves as a demonstration of a liberal, pluralistic, modernizing project, carried out, however, with the help of political tools inherited from the Soviet era. The interest in religious buildings is explained by the desire to legitimize the state and prevent the monopoly of the church in public space. The lower the political credibility of the government, the more it depends on the resources of the Orthodox heritage, symbolizing the glorious past and the viability of the nation. However, the opening of old churches for worship and the construction of many new churches that copy the old ones blurs the very concept of cultural and historical heritage in the public consciousness and makes state intervention illegitimate. The Sameba and Bagrati cathedrals eventually acquire cult functions, and references to Orthodoxy in political discourse work rather to strengthen the authority of the church.
Nevertheless, the failure of the state in this area and the growing influence of the church do not necessarily imply the desecularization of society. The importance attached to monumental buildings
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religious buildings, indicates the central role of Orthodoxy as a marker of identity, but does not necessarily reflect the growing influence of religion in Georgian society. On the other hand, power plays in the public space and the resulting polarization indicate that it is impossible for the church to assert its hegemony. In addition, a third architectural landmark appeared in Tbilisi, complementing the symbolic geography of the city-Bidzina Ivanishvili's "business center" on a hill opposite Avlabari, near the statue of Mother Kartli (Mother of Georgia). This triplicity symbolically reads modern Georgia, where political power, religious power and business power are divided.
Translated from French by Galina Vdovina
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